Lindsay Columbo’s excellent post for the FCPA Blog (“How did due diligence ever become so complicated?”) articulated a set of thought-provoking observations that many of us working in the financial and legal sector, and who have compliance and KYC obligations, have been pondering for some time.

It's increasingly important to understand the way disruptive technologies such as blockchain, cryptocurrencies, artificial intelligence, and big data are already impacting and will continue to shape how compliance systems work.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies are expected to bring massive operational efficiencies to compliance and ethics program management tasks. But what exactly is behind these buzzwords?

Rob Gruppetta, Head of the Financial Crime Dept. at the FCAArtificial intelligence will always be a "work in progress" in fighting money laundering and won't entirely replace humans and their intuition, a top UK regulator said.

The growing complexity of third-party relationships, and the immediate regulatory and reputational risks of those third parties has procurement teams, compliance officers and legal departments working to figure out the best way to proceed.

Just 15 years ago, due diligence researchers might spend hours retrieving documents from courthouses and sifting through microfiche at libraries. As recently as 2010, they could go through six to 12 months of training just to learn how to create a “level 1” report.

There’s no doubt that the growing commercialization of Artificial Intelligence will continue in 2017. Much of that commercialization effort will be focused around robotics, cars, and consumer side applications. However, 2017 should also start to see real growth of applications for AI in enterprises as well.